New coronavirus can spread between humans—but it started in a wildlife market
With confirmed cases in multiple countries, health officials are looking to similar outbreaks from the past and seeing a common thread.
History appears to be repeating itself.
Almost 20 years ago, a virus appeared in wildlife markets in southern China, and it was unlike any the world had seen. It was winter 2003, and sufferers complained of fever, chills, headache, and dry coughs—all symptoms you might expect during cold and flu season.
But this condition would progress into a lethal form of pneumonia, one that left honeycomb-shaped holes in people’s lungs and generated severe respiratory failure in a quarter of patients. While most infections only spread to three additional people, some of the afflicted became “superspreaders”—patients who unwittingly transmitted the disease to dozens at a time. By the time the epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) ended seven months later,
